Breast Milk Compound Could Protect Against Cancer

June 28th 2004

A compound in breast milk can destroy warts, researchers have discovered.

The human papilloma virus, which causes warts, is a common virus and has similarities with the virus found in cervical cancer.

Professor Catharina Svanborg and colleagues of Lund University, Sweden, have named the breast milk compound Hamlet, short for 'human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumour cells'.

They applied human breast-milk to warts and found that the virus was killed in 75 per cent of patients whose warts had resisted all other treatment.

The discovery is published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The scientists believe that the discovery could help treat cervical cancer, and plan to carry out a trial on women with cervical cancer. It may also be relevant to a range of other lethal diseases caused by the human papilloma virus, including, squamous cell skin cancer and dangerous throat lesions.

Professor Svanborg comments, "Treatment with Hamlet has a beneficial and lasting effect on skin papillomas (warts). This may have relevance for the treatment of cervical cancer, because virally infected and cancer cells are similar."

Hamlet is able to selectively kill wart cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. Breast milk is already known to contain an antibiotic, but this effect on viruses was discovered by accident.

N Engl J Med 2004; 350:2663-2672

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